Emails to Wilkinson & Sniegoski

After reading this from Wilkinson in The Economist on Charles Murray and the “new elite” I sent an email to Will. I still haven’t gotten a reply, so I reproduce it below:
Charles Murray is not god-fearing‏
He’s an agnostic, though respectful of religion and attends Quaker meetings with his wife (who was an English professor at Rutgers when they met). They live in Frederick County Maryland, near Washington D.C (unless his wikipedia article is outdated). I’m not sure whether he’d actually deny being a member of the elite, nor do I believe he thinks the elite needs dethroning. From what I recall when his book on education was coming out he had some editorials on how we need to inculcate wisdom in our elite.

Dinesh D’Souza invited Murray as a witness in the “Religion on Trial” event, where Steve Landsburg argued the other side. You can check it out here.

I also sent an email in reply to this from Stephen Sniegoski. Nicholas Strakon says he’ll forward it along. I also reproduce it below.
Sniegoski complains about Rich Lowry proposing that we threaten to nuke Mecca in retaliation for a terrorist attack. He is of like mind with Adam Ozimek, who calls Tom Tancredo “crazy” for echoing the idea. But as pointed out in the comments section there, that is just the course of action that Thomas Schelling’s analysis of games would suggest. An optimal threat would actually even lead to fewer Muslims being killed than under Uncle Sam’s current strategy.

Looking through my outbox I see that I also sent a link to Mencius Moldbug on the superiority of monarchs to non-monarchial autocrats, which some readers here may also enjoy.

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25 Responses to “Emails to Wilkinson & Sniegoski”

Wilkinson’s piece in the Economist is worth reading, but I’m not sure he’s nailed down the truth any more squarely than Murray. When discussing a topic like “the elite(s),” it’s difficult to avoid sweeping generalizations. In Murray’s (and Reich’s) defense, it seems pretty evident that when America had an agricultural economy, we had an agriculutral elite, an industrial economy, an indutrial elite, and now, with a . . . whatever, post-industrial or information-age economy, we have a similarly reflective elite.

As disenchantment with America’s economic fortunes grows, Silcon Valley, Hollywood, the Beltway, and Wall Street have all been conflated in the popular imagination into one indistinguishable mass of leftward-leaning Ivy Leaguers sneering at the struggling victims of America’s economic mayhem. Again, a gross simplification, but not entirely baseless; people in power often do sneer at those below them. It’s one of the great perks of being in power.

One of the weaknesses, it seems to me, in Murray’s piece is that he flips back and forth between “the elite” and the upper middle class. A moderately successful marketing executive in suburban Atlanta is doing OK, better than many others, but he ain’t exactly running the country. His only real connection to “the elites” may be his tendency to ape their professed values and status displays in the hope that he can acquire some of their insulation from economic shock (see the Wall Street bailouts). In this way, the elite(s) do often make the manners of the lower orders.

Declaring we were going to bomb Mecca would be a declaration that we were planning on engaging in international terrorism. It would embolden Al Quaeda and turn every moderate muslim, and in fact every moderate person, in the world against us. It would certainly empower radicals in every Muslim country in the world. It would probably be a huge boon to Al Quaeda’s recruiting. Any terrorist who attacked us would be a hero.

I’m sure threatening international terrorism would get us kicked out of NATO and maybe even the U.N. We’d lose all of our allies.

And on top of all of this it’s just not a credible threat, since international terrorism probably violates U.S. law and definitely would be opposed by the majority of Americans, and so it wouldn’t stop anyone from doing anything.

I like the peice by wilkinson, but the mystery to me is why if Tea Partiers are smart, they don’t choose choose smart candidate standard-bearers like themselves. The great sin of O’Donnell type candidate is their ignorance, from my perspective.

“I like the peice by wilkinson, but the mystery to me is why if Tea Partiers are smart, they don’t choose choose smart candidate standard-bearers like themselves. The great sin of O’Donnell type candidate is their ignorance, from my perspective.”

Smart people normally don’t want to subject themselves to the deep anal probes that go with contemporary US electoral politics. And if you think all liberal D’s are smart you’d better check out the careers of Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray.

As Pareto observed more than a century ago, politics is – everywhere and always – a conflict between two elites, one new and rising, the other old and declining.

I don’t think holding elective office is necessarily a sign of elite membership. Our elected politicians speechify and posture, but the real decisions are made by the permanent government of bureaucrats and judges – those represented by the character “Sir Humphrey’ in the British comedy “Yes, Minister.’ This is the locus classicus of the new and rising elite.

The tea-party movement consists substantially of small business owners. Indeed, they are better educated and more affluent than average, but on the whole they count few amongst their number who are truly a part of a national elite. They’re the equivalent of the ‘bonnet lairds’ of the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries; ‘county gentry,’ a provincial elite. Once, back in the days when Calvin Coolidge ran against John Davis for the presidency, they dominated both political parties; now, they are struggling for the recognition of one, the Republicans. The other, the Democrats, is entirely in the thrall of the new and rising elite, which directs the permanent government, and its cronies, who profit by their connections with it.

“… I think its fair to say dems and repubs have both put forth many candidates of very high level competence.”

I should have specified who tends to really get reamed. Smart and reliable Establishmentarians like Romney, Schumer, etc. will almost always be forgiven for whatever they have done or will do. Now check to see how much investigative effort has been devoted to uncovering the low-level misdeeds of perceived atypicals like Joe Miller, Tancredo, and Palin. I could be wrong, but I think that kind of activity is meant to have a strong deterrent effect.

[corrected link to All the King’s Men]
(…)“Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption, and he passeth from the stink of the dydie to the stench of the shroud,” says Willie when told that no adverse information about an opponent would be likely to be found. “There’s always something”
(…)

Joe Miller is an interesting example, since he has a curriculum vitae that would make him unexceptionable as an establishmentarian: West Point graduate, decorated combat veteran, Yale Law graduate, Federal magistrate. If he weren’t a Tea Party candidate – if he had allowed himself to be co-opted by the New Elite – his career path would be secure.

I believe the “strong deterrent effect” is perhaps strongest in the cases of people who have such suitable credentials. Palin and Tancredo have always been beyond the pale. The New Elite eats such people for breakfast; they are amusingly presumptuous in their attempts to breach the citadel from without. On the other hand, someone like Miller must be singled out for exemplary punishment, for his crime is much more serious – betraying it from within.

Marxists sometimes say that it is the capitalist qua class which rules, rather than individual capitalists. A similar argument might be made (and I think has been by a number of people) for the “new class” that Kenneth Anderson harps on about. Humorously enough, the old neoconservatives use to accuse the “new class” of trying to move America away from the welfare state!

America already engages in action that “moderate Muslims” may regard as international terrorism. And it may empower radicals who rhetorically take stands against the Great Satan, but the point is to disincentivize attacks on America. I think the threat can be credible and that al Qaeda would place a lot more utility on the question of either city getting nuked than America does on anything they’re capable of. I would actually like to see polling data on what Americans think of the idea, I think you’re pulling an Anthony Kennedy. And as a sovereign nation the U.S can change its law as it sees fit (though since we are already sending flying robots to blow people up in countries we aren’t in a declared conflict with, I don’t know what more we don’t allow ourselves to do). To add some detail to the strategy, I think we have enough nukes that we could first drop a test nuke on an uninhabited island or something just to demonstrate what we will do.

The O’Donnell primary seems to have been a surprise. Delaware is not a very Republican state, so it might be something of a fluke. Other than her I haven’t heard many comparisons of the quality of Tea Party candidates to the average member of Congress.

icr, dimmer people are less likely to be politically involved at all sorts of levels. I suspect they are also less likely to devote time to comic book fandom or other trivial interests. Actually running for office is another story. I think that selects for an unusual personality which enjoys aspects of campaigning most of us would find unpleasant, which I agree is a questionable selective filter for our governance.

Your vastly understating how much fury it would raise agains the U.S. And clearly there is a difference between acts which some moderate muslims consider terrorism but our allies and international bodies of law consider legal warfare and acts which anyone familiar with the definition of terrorism would agree is terrorism. Simply making the threat would encourage more terrorism, and would make it impossible for Muslim nations to cooperate with us in the war on terror, thus making us less effective in fighting the greater amount of terror.

Just about any middle eastern or terrorism expert will tell you that winning the support of moderate muslims is crucial in preventing terrorism. This would lose us all muslim support, and all support of reasonable people.

If actual terrorists can be dissuaded from attacking the U.S, moderate Muslims are irrelevant. “Moderate muslims” are necessary to act as U.S clients in the region in various efforts covered with “the war on terror”, but I (and many other Americans who don’t have a great interest in foreign policy) don’t care. And if the threat is credible (hence the demonstration test-nuke) I think it would dissuade terrorists.

At first I thought Mr. Ozimek’s position was so….. SO! But actually, what if some millenarian heterodox Muslim decides based on ______ that he should trigger the destruction of Mecca. Or just based on psychosis. Moderate Muslims would be cheesed off because they don’t know for sure that this isn’t going to happen, and they can’t necessarily control it. Psychologically, that is going to be enraging. I would rather just expel the Muslims, since I believe it’s a good idea in any case. I’m quite glad to see them prosper, back where they came from, and I really enjoy their art such as the Dome of the Rock. Bellissima!

The entire neo-conservative strategy of American engagement in the Middle East can be attributed to the desire to preserve the state of Israel. Whether it has accomplished that objective better than some other strategy mght have done is unclear. Certainly the left’s claim that the U.S. invaded Iraq for the oil makes no sense. As Pat Buchanan pointed out, Iraq under Saddam had nothing to sell to the West BUT oil – it depended on such sales for its revenues. Iraq’s oil production has fallen, and oil prices have risen, as a consequence of the Iraq war.

This country has not succeeded as a proconsular power half-way around the world because it has not understood the necessary tactics. Brutality is necessary to rule brutes. But whether the attempt to rule them, or to install ‘demaaahcracy’ that meets American approval, in such places is a strategic necessity at all, has not adequately been explored.

What if, instead, the U.S. set up a cordon sanitaire about the Middle East? Expel all Muslims from this country who are not already nationalized, and strictly review the nationalizations of those who have been; as the Ft. Hood shootings, the Times Square bomb attempt, or the recent plot to bomb the D.C. metro show, some of these ‘citizens’ have been carelessly vetted.

In future, Muslims should be granted visas to enter the United States only to do stated business, for brief periods of time. Their movements should be restricted to certain vicinities within the United States, as those of persons from the Soviet Union once were in this country, and as those of Americans once were in the Soviet Union. Deviation from a previously submitted and vetted itinerary should be met with immediate expulsion. The message to the Muslim world should be: we are interested ONLY in the one useful thing you have to sell us, namely oil. We do not need large numbers of you in our country, studying at our universities, living in our midst, having anchor babies. Do your business expediently, then get out.

U.S. military forces should be re-deployed from their far-flung posts – including in the lands of our so-called European allies – to secure American borders. This would yield the unrelated dividend of helping to exclude unlawful immigration from Latin America.

Europe, Canada, and the Far East should be encouraged to take similar steps to those outlined, and the U.S. should offer aid and advice to that end. Those countries that do should be offered the most favorable trade and immigration treatment. Those that do not should expect to find themselves within a somewhat less restrictive version of the cordon sanitaire, designed to keep out Muslims who might have wormed their way into their societies and acquired their citizenship. We ought to be willing to let ethnic Englishmen, Swedes, Danes, Italians, Spaniards, Canadians, Singaporeans, etc., travel freely here, but Muslims on British, Swedish, etc., passports should be subject to the same rules as those on passports from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or other Islamic countries.

Such a policy would be both cheaper and likelier to yield a peaceful coexistence with the Islamic world than the one we have. Good fences make good neighbors.

The plan I suggest is also utllitarian in the strict sense, as catering to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. It seems to me that Muslims are happier among their own kind, under the rule of Sharia, than they are in the Dar-ul-Harb. We, on the other hand, would be happier if Muslims were among their own kind than if they were here.

So why not – like a bickering couple – agree to a separation? We’d both be happier apart than together.

I agree that Muslims aren’t that dangerous. They’re rather pathetic when you think about it. I agree with Eliezer Yudkowsky that our response to terrorism has caused us more harm than the actual terrorism (even aside from combat casualties, someone calculated all the wasted time at airports as dwarfing 9/11). I would mainly want to neutralize the issue so we don’t have to bother with our other foolish responses. Some relevant previous posts on immigration policy are here and here.

I never understood what was supposed to be “crazy” about floating the possibility of nuking Mecca in response to a nuclear terrorist attack. In case everyone’s forgotten, that was the same threat we had towards the Soviet Union and other nuclear powers not so long ago.

What are they most dangerous to? Other muslims, I suppose. I am saying they don’t have much power, including to inflict harm, and the harm they do inflict is reliant to a large extent on a sort of auto-immune reaction.

I think the problem with your grand plan is that muslims, despite perhaps being the most dangerous population of that size, aren’t really that dangerous.

As I say, it depends on what you are worried about them being dangerous to.

Even in places like England and Canada, Muslims are not very dangerous to the life and limb of the typical non-Muslim citizen.

But they are certainly eager assistants of the left in destroying the civic liberties of the people in those countries. You must have heard the horror stories coming out of those countries of people being subject to “hate crimes” laws for engaging in completely normal behavior which offended their Muslim neighbors.

The problem with the quasi-libertarian (or quasi-socialist, there is precious little difference) view is that it is congenitally incapable of comprehending any “harm” which is not either economic or physical.

Usually it is libertarians who complain about conservatives not being sufficiently concerned with civil liberties (and liberals complaining that libertarians place too much weight on economic liberty and not enough on social ones).